from Jim

BIRTH OF THE BOOK

Dear blogger friends,

Thank you for agreeing to read and review my book, Parenting Unchained. I want to give you just a little background about the book so you can appreciate how God leads us even when we don't know we need leading. For nine years the book sat 90% finished under the working title of "The Ultimate Father Figure." Over those nine years, I had to undergo a radical change to my approach to parenting because of my arrogance. God has ways to humble us, and mine was through my children as they grew up and left for college.

My wife, Gail, and I first heard Scott and Joanne in January of 2008, and we recognized immediately that we'd pursued a behavior modification approach to parenting and were seeing the predictable results. In September of 2013, I took the time to re-write the book using much of what we learned through our exposure to the National Center for Biblical Parenting. I sent it to Scott and asked him to read it and give advice. He had kind words for it, and mentioned his three-fold test for books. Mine passed the first two, but he said it fell short in the third test: It was 'not compelling.' In his words, what would compel someone to pick up my book rather than the scores of parenting books out there? I was so glad to get his feedback because that set me on a course to make the book compelling (or at least more so.)

Almost overnight, and simply by asking God, the Lord gave me a new approach to the book, changing it from giving ten Biblical principles for parenting to sharing the ways Satan deceives Christian parents by trying to hide these ten principles. I thought the re-write would take months, but in one weekend, it came together miraculously as Gail looked on in amazement. She says she had never seen me write so fast and with such purpose. In my small marketing sample, this new version was clearly more compelling than the old. Regardless of how God uses this book, I got to see God at work, and that gives me great satisfaction. It also has given me a clarity of purpose for my overall ministry, sounding a warning about the ways Satan derails Christian parents if we don't stay close to Him and His ways.

In any case, I hope you read the book thinking of two kinds of Christian parents: those that are desperate for help, and those who think they don't need any. I pray for both, and believe my book will help both sets avoid the deceptions we fell into.

I welcome your feedback and your interaction with me on my blog. You can check it out at my website, www.d6culture.com. I would very much like to promote your ministries there.